Jeff Flake: “I am not here to defend the Republican record on earmarks. It's abysmal, frankly. I think that's one of the main reasons…”

“I am not here to defend the Republican record on earmarks. It's abysmal, frankly. I think that's one of the main reasons we are here squarely in the minority today. But I took great heart, as did many of us, at the promises that were made with the new Congress, that we would have real transparency, real accountability. And, unfortunately, what we are seeing today is a move away from that. Let me read a statement that I mentioned. In June of this year, the Speaker of the House, in a press conference, said, ``Before Members vote on a bill, there should be an appropriate time for people to be able to read it, that it should be a matter of public record. And if there's an earmark that can stand the scrutiny, then that transparency will give the opportunity for it to be there.'' When you have nine, at least, that we have been able to find, and when the gentleman says that they are all marked with an asterisk, how do we know? We have 150 pages of earmarks that we were given just this morning. We only got the hard copy of this this morning. We simply don't know. So it behooves us to move a little slower here. If we really believe in transparency, if we really believe that these earmarks need to be there, then let's have a rule that actually allows for a point of order to be lodged against the conference report, not just against the rule.”